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I recently accepted a position from Teach and Learn with Georgia, a Georgian Ministry of Education program designed to bring native speakers of English into classrooms around the country. I will be moving to Georgia in August of 2014 to begin my assignment.

Before this latest adventure, I studied at Bogazici University in Istanbul Turkey and at Azerbaijan University of Languages. I speak English German Spanish, Turkish Azerbaijani and Uzbek and am currently trying my hand at Georgian.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Myself
and Sarah, having made our decision on Edirne, left bright and early on Friday
morning. A little background. Edirne is a former Ottoman capital about 3 hours
West of Istanbul, putting it within spitting distance of both the Greek and
Bulgarian borders. Nowadays it has fewer than 150000 residents and is
overlooked by all but the most adventurous of tourists. Enter us. Getting to
Edirne consisted of us taking a shuttle bus to Alibeyköy bus station and then
just catching another shuttle (luckily I was listening pretty closely to the
service announcements which were of course all in Turkish) to the Bayrampaşa
station and from there catching the actual bus to Edirne. Bayrampasa was nuts
and our bus didn’t end up pulling into an actual parking spot but just pulled
up behind the other buses and we heard some guy call out an announcement that
it was there. We both slept on the bus but we got banana cake and drinks from
the bus attendant. This despite the fact that we were only on the bus for 2 and
a half hours. We stopped once for a smoking break and got into Edirne before
noon. We caught a dolmuş or minibus into the town itself since the bus station
is almost 10km from the city center. The driver of the dolmus seemed a little
surprised to see foreigners in town and made sure that we got off at the right
stop, which was right next to Selimiye Mosque. We grabbed lunch in a small
restaurant and I gave the address of our apartment to the waiter, who gave it
to the owner of the establishment and he called the hotel for us to get an
exact location. He gave me directions (see that mosque there, go behind it) and
within 5 minutes or so we were presenting ourselves to the management of a
small Turkish apartment house, who appeared in the form of an attractive
20-something Turkish man. We filled out all the paperwork and he showed us to
our room which was a bedroom, kitchen mudroom and bathroom, and free wifi. This
was all less than $25 a night. This country does create unrealistic
expectations for cost. We settled our stuff and decided to go exploring.

Üç
Şerefeli Camii

On Friday we ended up seeing the three biggest
and most important mosques in town, which are Üç Şerefeli Eski Camii and
Selimiye Camii. We approached them in this order. After being given a Turkish
umbrella, which has a canopy of clear plastic by one of the men who
lived/worked at the apartment block since it was raining hard when we left, we
walked about 30 feet and into Üç Şerefeli. We were the only ones in the place.
I could hear the rain on the dome of the mosque and we quietly wandered, taking
photos and simply enjoying the incredibly calm atmosphere that the mosque
created. The physical beauty of it could have easily been overwhelming, but
small human touches, like the shelves for the shoes of the faithful, or a rack
of coats and scarves for women to cover up with, helped to avoid this. We
stayed for a while and then ventured back out into the rain. At Eski Camii a
funeral was just wrapping up on the porch outside so men were coming in to
pray, but after I asked we were urged inside. This mosque did not feature any
tiling and most of its walls were blank but for huge calligraphy inscriptions.
İt was dark and we could hear the men moving around, but I liked this too. It
felt like a place of worship, somewhere that people marked the everyday as well
as important life events. While we were inside the muezzin started the call to
prayer and so we snuck out through a stream of worshippers taking off their
shoes and entering through the green leather doors that mark most any
functioning mosque in Turkey. Since mosques prefer that tourists not come in
during prayers we went beyond Selimiye and instead checked out the small local
Archaeology and Ethnography museum. After showing our museum cards to some
mildly surprised guards we wandered through the exhibits, which included some
rather nice Greek and Roman pottery and sculpture, as well as mannequins
showing traditional Turkish dress and a room in an Ottoman household.

Eski
Camii

Edirne is littered with old Ottoman homes, a
few of which have been restored, and most of which have fallen into terrible
disrepair, leaving their wooden fronts as a reminder of how fall this town has
fallen, from the center of Ottoman life, to a small border town.Many of the streets are dirty and littered
with debris. Homes are a bit ramshackle and water pours down in rivers when it
rains moderately hard. The riverbanks are covered in trash and many of the
roads outside of the city center are dirt, or half dirt. Modernity recedes from
your consciousness. You take in the grime and the abandoned buildings
dispassionately. Edirne felt poorer than Istanbul, or at least than the Istanbul
that I know. Edirne is also home to the requisite stray cats and dogs, a large
number of tractors and horse carts especially considering its size and what
feels like a sizable portion of the Turkish army. Over the course of the
weekend we walked past at least a dozen militarily protected sites, most of
them barracks. This is probably because the town is on the border but it still
is enough to put you a little on alert and induce some nervousness.

We
returned to Selimiye after a while and stepped into an earthly paradise.
Selimiye is supposed to be the crown jewel of Mimar Sinan’s creations. Sinan
was probably the most important Imperial architect throughout the entire
Ottoman era. His name is omnipresent and his works are famous. And Selimiiye is
breathtaking. The balance of space, color, light, sound, atmosphere, material,
scale, everything about that mosque sang. I could have sat there for hours. I
took more photos than it really decent, and yet I knew that I could not capture
the grandeur and the serenity of the place. Selimiye had a few visitors but not
many. People were quiet and respectful and most of those inside the mosque were
Turkish. A few cleaning women went about their task. I craned my neck to try
and inspect every detail of the mosque’s furnishings, though the detail put in
defies memory. I sat on a raised platform at the back for a while and watched
the subtle changes in lighting as the sun sank lower on the horizon. I listened
in to the conversations happening around me and found myself smiling at the
pure pleasure of understanding without having to work at it. Not only the
language but much of the culture and the history and the religion of this
country have become clearer in the 2 and a half years since I started studying
it. I am reaching a point where I can translate for people, but I can translate
more than manuscripts and menus. I can translate much of the culture to those
who have no prior knowledge of it. I can begin to share and open eyes and
explain to people why I pick a language as an elective and insist on returning
to the region despite the fact that it occasionally makes me crazy.

Sarah in Selimiye Camii

We
walked that evening, through the rain and the falling fog, past men-only coffee
shops and people selling fruit out of the trunks of their cars. We walked and
took it in until our minds and hearts and shoes were saturated and then we
turned for home.

The
next morning we took a roundabout route to the Museum of Health in an old
Ottoman hospital complex and learned about the advanced treatment that was
available to patients of all types, including the mentally ill, such as music
therapy, from the 1650s and before. I can highly recommend this museum, both
for the rather startling knowledge that almost 400 years ago people treatment
options were as good if not better than they are today for the mentally ill and
also for the frankly hilarious mannequin exhibits of patients and treatments
including a man with “chronic psychosis” who appears to have a Moses complex.
The museum building was again stunning and attached to the Beyazid II Mosque,
which of course we visited as well. This too was beautiful, small and raw,
looking unfinished when compared to the other mosques that we had seen, but
this detracted not at all from its charm. We were again alone in the mosque. We
walked back into town through a residential area, where I heard a women
speaking to her neighbor say “There are foreigners here!” as though we were the
first they had ever seen. We checked out the shopping quarter of the city and
visited two more museums: the Turkish Islamic Arts and the Selimiye Mosque
Foundation Museum. Both were located in the former medreses, or schools, within
the outer courtyard of the Selimiye mosque complex. Again, I think I enjoyed
the building as much as the exhibits.We
turned in early, due at least in part to the fact that it was again cold and
rainy. Anytime spring wants to arrive I will welcome it with open arms.

Me
outside Selimiye

On
Sunday, our last day in town, we walked to the South to check out two Ottoman
bridges, walked by the river for a while, attracted a very good number of
amused startled and frankly confused stares and then decided we might as well
hit a nice round 5 for mosques. We settled on Muradiye Camii for our last
visit. This was an excellent decision. We walked through another residential
neighborhood, this one feeling poor but very friendly and got directions up to
the mosque, which stood on a hill in a sea of green, part garden and part
cemetery. We went into the mosque with a man who I assume was its caretaker,
but also seemed to be a very serious student of the Koran. An imam perhaps? I
could not say. IN any case he offered to give us some history about the mosque,
since, quell surprise; we were the only ones there. I provided a running
English translation of his explanation of various architectural features and
historical tidbits about the building and various figures who had been
associated with it. I have never had a real tour of a mosque before and it made
it so much more meaningful. It was also fun to stretch my wings a little and
try my hand at translation. I think I rather like it. The mosque was small and
cozy for want of a better word. The decoration had at one point been lavish but
had fallen on hard times. It was built by Fatih Sultan Mehmet’s father, in the
1430s. The building felt like it knew its age but it was still proud, and
perfectly aware of its history. The vista was stunning too, with an excellent
view of the town. Edirne may not be what it once was, but it cannot be
discounted. It stands tall, unabashed of what it knows lies at its feet. It
endures.And I cannot help but to admire
it for its forgotten glory.

Oh Turkey. You strange, wonderful and occasionally
infuriating country. Last week I let off after my first class failed to materialize.
I magically found a syllabus online, which hadn’t been there before and I
proceeded to try and find the readings. They weren’t available online so I
emailed the professor and she was super nice about the whole thing. So while things
aren’t necessarily reliable everyone is exceptionally kind and will bend over backwards
to help you. Which makes you wonder why it is that nothing works. Sometimes
such questions are best not to ask. I sometimes find Turkey more frustrating
than Azerbaijan. It goes something like this. Turkey is more developed than
Azerbaijan and also considerably less corrupt. These are good things. I like
national infrastructure and not being afraid of the cops. However, Turkey also
hasn’t joined the West fully either. It does not move with the precision of
say, the Germans, who believe that if a train is 3 minutes late civilization is
coming to an end. The end product is that you have a country where the bureaucracy
is complex, unwieldy and occasionally flawed, such as the entire residency
permit process. This is the same as in Azerbaijan but in Azerbaijan you just pay
various people and things go faster. In Turkey you cannot buy service like this
because it isn’t allowed anymore. So you just have to deal with the whole
makes-you-want-to-pull-your-hair-out-by-the-roots process. But it does make the
whole thing quite an adventure. My mantra from last summer is coming back to
life. For those of you who are approximately my age you will remember the TV
show “Whose line is it anyway”. I stole my mantra from them: everything’s made
up and the points don’t matter. I am fairly certain this is how life works
here. I do award myself points. Successful Turkish language interactions score
high. Bought bus tickets without a mishap? 5 points. Didn’t understand the
waiter? -1 point. But they don’t actually mean anything. But I still do it. It’s
just the rest of reality is made up too so sometimes life can be a little
confusing.

On Tuesday I went to my Turkish for foreigners class and
realized that it had been mislabeled. It should be called “Turkish for foreigners
who are actually native speakers of Turkish”. I was in just a little over my
head. The Professor spoke only in Turkish for the entire class, but I followed
along, so that felt good. She said that perhaps some people should be in other
Turkish classes. This was a problem. I now saw the class as a personal challenge.
I like to take on challenges. Heck, I started learning Turkish in the first
place, I obviously can’t be dissuaded easily from a goal once I’ve started. So
I tried to buy the textbook for the class the next day so I could come out of
the gate strong. This being Turkey the text book was only made available a half
hour before class began the next morning so instead I sat through about 2 hours
of the teacher speed reading and then speed lecturing about the reading and not
saying a single word. In a moment of fear about my own abilities I attended the
Turkish for Foreigners low intermediate class that afternoon. I wanted to fly
under the radar and was of course, spotted within 5 seconds by the teacher. The
class was 2 hours long and I figured out pretty quickly that it would be too
easy for me. Some of the students seemed pretty good but I like a challenge and
that class wasn’t it. I did meet a girl who had done CLS Bursa though so it was
fun to recount the strange adventures that are CLS institutes over a cup of
chay.

I spent these evenings pretty quietly, at home watching a
movie or chatting with roommates and the like. Wednesday night I tried out the
dining hall here on campus and I have to say, for 1.5 TL (83 cents or so) the
food was pretty darn good. I finished up my Sherlock Holmes story in Turkish
which I started on Monday night on South campus, sitting on a bench while the
sun went down and slowly being surrounded until I had a herd of cats that
numbered about 15 and decided that I never actually wanted to be that crazy cat
lady and so moved.

The week had been pretty frustrating up to this point
because all I really wanted was something to do, classes to go to, homework to
read or write, something anything to fill my time. And I couldn’t find
anything. Wednesday the pace picked up and I was able to spend a good chunk of
time doing the reading for my Turkish class. On Wednesday I also decided with
my friend Sarah that it was time to get out of Istanbul and start to see the
country. Specifically, we would go to Edirne, since I really wanted to go and could
arrange a hotel, bus tickets etc for the weekend. Having made this decision, I
was able to happily spend several hours online looking at how we were arrive
there, how best to time our arrival and departure and looking for a reasonably
priced hotel near the center of town. I also spent some time looking at what
all was in Edirne and compiling a list of my must-dos while there. I really always should be given something to
do.

Thursday I slept though high intermediate Turkish, which I
had considered checking out but it conflicts with my chem course, which I do
actually have to take so I decided it was for the best anyway. Instead I bought
the course pack for the class and will work on it on my own. I know most of the
grammar concepts being taught in the course already anyway, but a little
practice never hurts. Then in the afternoon I went to my other anthropology
course, which ended up being pop culture in the Middle East, and I am super
excited about it. The professor was a little surprised at how many were in the
class and the fact that none of us had been able to access to the syllabus but
she took it in her stride and chatted with us for a while before letting us
out. I went with Sarah and bought bus tickets without any mishap (5 points) and
we booked out hotel, which is actually an apartment, but whatever. I had dinner
in the cafeteria and then I met up with my Turkish roommate Ayşe for tea and cake. We went into a little café
and ordered. We ended up having a really wonderful conversion and probably
talked for 2 or 3 hours. She wanted to practice her English and I always need
to practice my Turkish so that was how we did it. She spoke English and I spoke
Turkish and we understood each other quite well. It was rather wonderful because
if I ever didn’t know the Turkish word, I just inserted the English one and she
did the opposite. The week ended far better than it began and I was grateful
for the resolution. My classes seem to be great, I’ve met some amazing people and
I have made progress in my spoken competency already in my 3 weeks here. I
cannot wait to see what happens after 3 months.

Monday, February 18, 2013

And now to the Hannah serial adventure of the residency permit. I was able
to get my student certificate (öğrenci
belgesi) by Thursday and went early Friday morning to the central police
station down in Fatih, because I was required to take care of it there since
they have the foreigners division. This takes about an hour and half of travel
each way. You know you have arrived at your destination by the police officers
with gigantic guns in front of the place, similar to the soldiers with gigantic
guns guarding Sultanahmet. Anyway, you act very friendly as you walk past them,
go through a metal detector that may or may not be on, give someone your
passport so that they can randomly type things into a computer. They say that
it is to keep track of who is in the building at all times, but no one checks
you off when you leave. I think that it is to provide more civil service jobs.
Anyway, now you’re into the complex. You march up a couple of stairs and a
courtyard through a haze of smoke, and in my case on Friday, rain, into a building
that could use a couple more heaters and walk into the Secretary of State’s
Office from hell. First of all imagine that no one at the Secretary of State’s
Office speaks English. This is the Secretary of State’s Office for foreigners,
for whom the best common language is probably English, but no matter, it’s Turkish
or nothing. Awesome. Next imagine that all the signage is also in Turkish.
Good. Imagine that the lobby is full of various offices for people who have
forgotten parts of the application because no one can figure out what is
actually needed for the application. Imagine now that you walk up the stairs.
There is an information desk with 2 Turkish speakers at it. They look at the
number on your paper that you show in their general direction praying for mercy
and some kind of aid. They tell you to go to a desk. You walk past rows of desk
with plastic in front, most of which are either not staffed or have staff not
doing anything at them. The aisle you walk though is too narrow for the average
American to begin with and about 25 people are standing in it waiting for their
number to be called, even though the number system is a mysterious creature and
subject to flights of fancy that include going backwards and sideways. It doesn’t
help that the numbers go up to about 800 and how they are assigned is also
mysterious and most probably simply an Act of God. You don’t have an
appointment that day because the school told you that didn’t need one. You go
up to the appointed desk the next time the guy is free. He avoids eye contact
or the acknowledgement of your existence for a few minutes by ordering tea and
chatting with his compatriots, who are similarly ignoring their charges. Finally
he looks up and you smile, because charm and bribery are your only hopes. He
begins to look at your paperwork, which is complete darn it, even though no one
else’s is. He frowns when he gets to the date on your paper and tells you to go
to a different office. This is down more rows and rows of desks. You must finagle
your way in and find the one person working that day. He looks at your paper,
has you write your name on a piece of computer paper for reasons as misguided
as the ones for looking at your passport at the entrance and tells you to come
back at 7:30 PM for an appointment. It is now 9:30 AM. If you are me you decide
that walking more than an hour to Sultahahmet in the pouring rain is a great
plan. You end up at the archeology museum for the afternoon, cold and trying to
dry out, which you do successfully except for your feet, which will think will
be cold and damp for the rest of your life. The museum is fantastic though and you
randomly meet up with a friend and have dinner with them. You take the tram to
Fatih again and show up about an hour early, because what the hey, maybe they
will be free. When you get there you go through the same routine except that
the place is almost deserted and pretty much all the counters are free. The guy
asks you to sign various forms in Turkish without explaining what they say which
momentarily convinces you that you sold your soul to the Turkish Police. You
decide that if it means you get a residency permit it is worth it. It turns out
you agree to get kicked out of the country etc if you lied on your forms. He
underlines many things in red pen and asks you a question which you worry is something
terribly important but it turns out he wants you to confirm your parent’s names
and your place of birth. You’re not entirely sure you can remember. He finally
starts stapling things all over the place and hands it back to you. He says
that you can come back on Monday to pay for the thing since in the incredible wisdom
of this bureaucratic adventure appointments are available after the cashier
closes but they can only begin processing your forms once you have paid for the
thing. He tells you that you will owe 198 TL for the pleasure of another hour and
a half commute. You decide that bitching him out for the absolute lunacy and
frustrating quality of this adventure will not aid the process and so smile and
leave. You heave a deep sigh of relief that the Turkish police have not decided
to jail you, kick you out of the country or use their gigantic guns on you. And
you leave.

Then you get up nice and early on Monday morning and go into Fatih. You go
through security again. You give them your passport. You go to the cashier’s
desk and give them exactly 198 TL. He signs a form in great swirly letters,
gives one to you and does some more artistic stapling with the other and you
return to the desk and wait for someone to be free, give another great big
smile and hold up the line behind you. The man tears off a chunk of the form
where he has written the date when you can pick up your permit. It is the day
that you want to leave the country. You ask in the nicest voice you can muster
after having roused yourself at 7:30 in the morning for an hour and a half on
public transport that consisted of sitting next to a man that you are fairly
certain has TB and then giving up your seat on the tram to an old lady and almost
falling over 60,000 times as it careens around corners in a frankly non-safe
feeling manner. You ask the man at the desk if your appointment could maybe
possibly be earlier. He raises an eyebrow and asks when you want it to be and
you very sweetly say just a day earlier. He alters the date and says that’s
fine and you thank him profusely. Leaving the building you sing Mr. Rodgers “It’s
a beautiful day in the neighborhood” to the guards and their gigantic guns. And
you go home. And you begin to prepare for your hopefully final trip into Fatih
to pick up your residency permit and shake the dust of the Emniyet from your
heels forever. Please please please let it be so. I’ll let you know soon
enough. Hopefully you found this story funny and enjoyable. Because I have to
tell you, if you can’t laugh at the ridiculous bureaucratic tangles in this
country, you might just lose your mind.

I graduated from Michigan State University in 2014 with degrees in chemistry, anthropology and Turkic languages. When not out globetrotting, I can be found perched in front of my laptop, sharing my adventures with you.